IROs increasingly prefer half-day events held at hotels
Companies are hosting analyst days less often now than in 2009, with only a third of them hosting events annually and 20 percent hosting them every other year, according to a survey of IROs by NASDAQ Corporate Solutions. In 2009, 36 percent of IROs surveyed held analyst days every year and 22 percent hosted them every other year.
Just over a fifth (21 percent) of respondents to the latest survey say they have never hosted an analyst event, about the same number as in the 2009 survey. Only 4 percent, mostly mega-cap and large-cap companies, hold an analyst event more than once a year.
‘In fact, unless there is something material to discuss, the investors we surveyed (via our perception studies) don’t see the need for companies to host this type of event on a yearly basis,’ the study authors write. ‘This sentiment is gaining momentum within the corporate space, as a measure of cost cutting.’
The survey also shows that 52 percent of companies hosted, or planned to host, an analyst day event in 2014, up from 49 percent in 2009 but down from 58 percent in 2007. More than half (56 percent) of the companies surveyed hold a half-day event, around the same as in the 2009 survey. Respondent companies that hold a full-day event dropped to 22 percent in the latest survey from 24 percent in 2009. Full-day events are particularly rare among companies in Europe and Asia Pacific, where only 4 percent of firms host events that last a whole day.
Fifty-eight percent of respondents say they hold analyst days in hotels, up from 55 percent in 2009 and 50 percent in 2007. The number of companies that hold events at their headquarters has dropped to 15 percent, from 19 percent in 2009 and 26 percent in 2007.
